Tales from Many Sources eBook

“He wants me to marry him,” replied Virginia
quietly. “He asked me four years ago; he
asked me again the day before yesterday.”

She draws a letter from her pocket, and scans Philip’s
face as he reads it. When he has finished, he
looks at her. She understands his glance but
too well. There is an only half-suppressed eagerness—­a
half-suppressed hope in it.

“What shall I do?” she says, so quietly
that it deceives him.

“There is no better fellow living than Harford,”
he says cordially. “If you thought you
could be happy with him; if—­”

He stops abruptly. There is a look of such terrible
agony in Virginia’s face that he starts up and
takes her hand.

“No, no,” he cries. “Let it
be as I said. Let us marry each other. It
is the only thing to be done.”

Virginia’s ears, sharpened by suffering, catch
the dreary tone of the concluding words.

* * * *
*

Next morning, when Philip, according to custom, went
to Virginia’s room, he found her asleep.
From that sleep she never woke. One more of those
unfortunate cases of an overdose of chloral. The
deceased lady had suffered much from sleeplessness,
and always kept the fatal drug by her bedside.

The church gave its blessing, and society smiled when
that heretic and sceptic Mr. Vansittart led his charming
girl-bride to the altar a few months later. It
was whispered that there had been an—­entanglement,
but that was all hushed up now, and he had become
a respectable member of society.

MR. JOSIAH SMITH’S BALLOON JOURNEY.

It would be an injustice to Josiah to suppose that
he limited his quest in the field of knowledge to
that particular portion indicated by his honoured
association with a distinguished society. He was
proud in his modest way, if the paradox be permitted,
when he produced his card, on which was engraved “Josiah
Smith, F.R.S.A.” Also it was known amongst
his friends that casual references to his great work
on “Underground England” were not displeasing
to him. But, as he was wont to say, “The
surest way of finding either mental or bodily recreation
is to seek it in fresh fields of labour.”

Thus it came to pass one evening in the spring of
this year that Josiah, having shut himself in all
day with the determination to make up for lost time,
found he had, with the aid of cold tea and wet bandages,
added as much as half a page to his great work.
Feeling the need of a little change of thought and
association, he had availed himself of an invitation
kindly sent to him to join the meeting of an aeronautic
society. Josiah had listened with profound attention
to the various speeches made, and had thought, really,
when he had a little more time he would devote it
to the fascinating science of aeronautics.